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The source discs came from the Australian version I received a month ago. The encoding and transfer is the same everywhere including the US version.

Like the Matrix Trilogy HD DVD release you don't have a choice selecting which movie to get. You have to spend extra for something you have no intention of watching again even if its in HD. To early adopters - meaning YOU - this is not a significant deterrent. This is the flagship release from Blu-ray and expectations are high regarding PQ and AQ. Based on the recent PQ performance of top tier BD release there is no reason this will disappoint. AQ are reference quality and demo worthy with SM just a tad lower. The other just have a little more bass and more active surrounds. But overall excellent quality.

About the PQ overall? Lets just say 2 out 3 of aint bad You have probably guessed which part of the trilogy I'm talking about. The other two (SM2 and SM3) PQ are top notch solid upper TIER 1 without a doubt. Sharp and detailed. Just for this two its well worth it. Now with that out of the way . . . .

. . . . Spiderman 1. What the h*** happened here? Yes, there is bit of extra detail over the Superbit DVD edition but other than that the overall PQ is dull, flat and is some parts - especially dark scenes - the PQ is almost identical to DVD. I may be too harsh to this title but compared to the other movies, the inferior PQ is jarring to say the least. I have HD broadcast -720p and 1080i somewhere I think (Hopefully I did not delete it) so maybe in the future I will post it too here for comparison. But for now we have:

wow...is something lost through these photos? These shots all look horrible.

Are you scrolling to the right to see the BD screens? While the first one isn't a huge difference it is clearly better. Look at the pores on Peter's face and MJs teeth and you'll see a lot more detail. The SM2 screens are night and day different. For some reason I can't see the SM3 BD screen. Perhaps xylon could put a carraige return in between his shots or something?

I've got a feeling that Spider-man is going to be of the best quality you are EVER going get out of the original source elements. Something tells me from both seeing the film in the theaters and on DVD that there were some deliberate choices made in the cinematography of that film that lends to a flat look.... It's just never been a reference movie for cinematography.

That said I can clearly see more detail in the faces and clothing in your images... I'm sure at the very least those of us with front projection systems will see a leap in performance.

Well my Box Set is on order form Amazon, but Spider-Man 1 does look kind of disappointing quality wise. The difference between the dvd and Blu-ray version for the 2nd movie is amazing. Colour and clarity are trully leaps and bounds above the dvd. The 3rd movie looks great too but i would love to see the difference in screenshots from both dvd and Blu-ray

Spider-Man 2 (theatrical) is roughly 34.7 GB
Spider-Man 2.1 (extended version of Spider-Man 2) is roughly 36.8 GB
You have to keep in mind that there are different playlists using different files on the disc for the respective versions. You can't just add all of them, as there are about 7 GB of redundant scenes on the disc.

Spider-Man 2 (theatrical) is roughly 34.7 GB
Spider-Man 2.1 (extended version of Spider-Man 2) is roughly 36.8 GB
You have to keep in mind that there are different playlists using different files on the disc for the respective versions. You can't just add all of them, as there are about 7 GB of redundant scenes on the disc.

The figures you mentioned are more accurate than the one I did regarding the movie file itself.

Yeah, the night photography in SM1 is pretty grainy. The Sam Raimi commentary even mentions the difficulty of shooting that particular scene. They basically had to push and pull it to get it to match because the lighting was changing.

SM2 looks like a MASSIVE improvement over the dvd. I'm kind of curious why the colors are so different though. I guess the dvd wasn't very accurate for some reason.

what's up with those huge ugly ratings graphic ruining the cover art like that? is that standard in australia? is it a removable sticker? christ, i purposely buy american edition DVDs (back when i bought DVDs) just so i didn't have to look at the ugly french the canadian gov't made the studios put on the cover along side the english.

"My biggest and most pleasing surprise was to discover that the first film had, in my opinion, the best image quality of the three; it was utterly film-like with lots of image depth. The color saturation and clean, artifact-free images of all three films are mesmerizing. But for me, the picture presentation of the first film was a cut above. I found this intriguing not only because the first film is my favorite of the series, but also because the first film always had a murky, muddy appearance on standard-definition DVD (the second film’s DVD presentation looks better)."

"My biggest and most pleasing surprise was to discover that the first film had, in my opinion, the best image quality of the three; it was utterly film-like with lots of image depth. The color saturation and clean, artifact-free images of all three films are mesmerizing. But for me, the picture presentation of the first film was a cut above. I found this intriguing not only because the first film is my favorite of the series, but also because the first film always had a murky, muddy appearance on standard-definition DVD (the second film's DVD presentation looks better)."

Never trust a dvd reviewer, when it comes to HD, trust your own eyes or even better trust Xylon's PIX

Never trust a dvd reviewer, when it comes to HD, trust your own eyes or even better trust Xylon's PIX

Uh, totally! Ever since the whole PotC thing I will NEVER trust a review on audio/video ever again. Apparently, everyone that reviewed the movie was busy making dinner or something. How could you miss heads being chopped off like that?

Oh, sorry about the thread fart...I just cant trust reviews anymore. Xylon's pics are much better than some subjective review...from anywhere.

Uh, totally! Ever since the whole PotC thing I will NEVER trust a review on audio/video ever again. Apparently, everyone that reviewed the movie was busy making dinner or something. How could you miss heads being chopped off like that?

Oh, sorry about the thread fart...I just cant trust reviews anymore. Xylon's pics are much better than some subjective review...from anywhere.

Honestly, I can see how the reviewer missed it. It wasn't until it was pointed out (well after its release) that people had a problem with it. Plus the picture quality and audio are still top notch. yes, Disney should fix it, but just about every else about that title was very well done.